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Yasmin Qureshi

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2019-07-09

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<p>Sales of Magistrates’, Youth and Crown court buildings from the 2017/18 financial
year onwards are as follows</p><table><tbody><tr><td><p><strong>Property</strong></p></td><td><p><strong>Receipt
(£)</strong></p></td><td><p><strong>Reform/Pre-reform</strong></p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Abergavenny
Magistrates Court</p></td><td><p>499,809</p></td><td><p>Reform</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Barnstaple
Magistrates' &amp; County Court</p></td><td><p>95,000</p></td><td><p>Reform</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Bolton
Magistrates' Court</p></td><td><p>750,000</p></td><td><p>Reform</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Brecon
Law Court</p></td><td><p>575,000</p></td><td><p>Reform</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Caerphilly
Magistrates Court</p></td><td><p>445,000</p></td><td><p>Reform</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Chester-le-Street
Magistrates Court</p></td><td><p>100,000</p></td><td><p>Reform</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Cirencester
Magistrates' Court</p></td><td><p>450,000</p></td><td><p>Pre-reform</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Dolgellau
Mags &amp; Crown Court</p></td><td><p>67,509</p></td><td><p>Reform</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Dorking
Magistrates' Court</p></td><td><p>2,125,000</p></td><td><p>Pre-reform</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Greenwich
Magistrates Court</p></td><td><p>12,005,000</p></td><td><p>Reform</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Hammersmith
Magistrates’ Court</p></td><td><p>43,000,000</p></td><td><p>Reform</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Holyhead
Magistrates Court (North Anglsey),</p></td><td><p>112,500</p></td><td><p>Reform</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Keighley
(Bingley) Magistrates' Court</p></td><td><p>254,310</p></td><td><p>Pre-reform</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Liverpool,
Dale Street Magistrates</p></td><td><p>1,000,000</p></td><td><p>Reform</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Lyndhurst
Magistrates' Court</p></td><td><p>900,000</p></td><td><p>Pre-reform</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Northallerton
Magistrates' Court</p></td><td><p>450,000</p></td><td><p>Reform</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Oswestry
Magistrates' Court</p></td><td><p>110,602</p></td><td><p>Pre-reform</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Richmond
Upon Thames Magistrates Court</p></td><td><p>9,850,000</p></td><td><p>Reform</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Solihull
Magistrates Court</p></td><td><p>4,300,000</p></td><td><p>Reform</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Tottenham
(Enfield) Magistrates Court</p></td><td><p>4,570,000</p></td><td><p>Reform</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Towcester
Magistrates' Court</p></td><td><p>50,000</p></td><td><p>Pre-reform</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Waltham
Forest Magistrates Court</p></td><td><p>3,471,040</p></td><td><p>Reform</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Watford
Magistrates Court</p></td><td><p>3,836,000</p></td><td><p>Reform</p></td></tr></tbody></table><p>
</p><p>The table above excludes transfers of surplus properties to other government
departments (such as Homes England) as these are not categorised as a sale transaction,
but as an internal transfer within government.</p><p> </p><p>The closure of any court
is not taken lightly – it only happens following full public consultation and when
communities have reasonable access to alternative courts.</p><p> </p><p>Since the
start of the Reform Programme, money raised from the sale of surplus buildings has
been reinvested in the reform of HM Courts &amp; Tribunals Service. The table above
identifies pre-reform buildings where this is not the case.</p>

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what information his Department holds on
the (a) market value of courts sold as part of HM Courts and Tribunal reform programme
and (b) the resale value of those courts after they entered private ownership.

<p>HMCTS achieves market value when selling surplus buildings and takes professional
advice as part of the disposal process to make sure that this is the case.</p><p>
</p><p>Sale receipts for court and tribunal buildings sold since 2016 are as follows</p><table><tbody><tr><td><p><strong>Property</strong></p></td><td><p><strong>Receipt
(£)</strong></p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Abergavenny Magistrates Court</p></td><td><p>499,809</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Barnstaple
Magistrates' &amp; County Court</p></td><td><p>95,000</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Bolton
Magistrates' Court</p></td><td><p>750,000</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Bow County Court</p></td><td><p>3,500,000</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Bracknell
Magistrates' Court</p></td><td><p>1,000,001</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Brecon Law Court</p></td><td><p>575,000</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Bridgend
Magistrates Court</p></td><td><p>375,000</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Caerphilly Magistrates
Court</p></td><td><p>445,000</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Carmarthen Law Courts (The Guildhall)</p></td><td><p>223,000</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Chester-le-Street
Magistrates Court</p></td><td><p>100,000</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Dolgellau Mags &amp;
Crown Court</p></td><td><p>67,509</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Feltham Magistrates Court</p></td><td><p>2,150,000</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Gloucester
Western Road</p></td><td><p>850,000</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Grantham Magistrates Court</p></td><td><p>560,000</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Greenwich
Magistrates Court</p></td><td><p>12,005,000</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Hammersmith Magistrates’
Court</p></td><td><p>43,000,000</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Holyhead Magistrates Court
(North Anglsey),</p></td><td><p>112,500</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Lambeth County Court</p></td><td><p>100,000</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Liverpool,
Dale Street Magistrates</p></td><td><p>1,000,000</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Llangefni
County Court</p></td><td><p>72,000</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Neath And Port Talbot County
Court</p></td><td><p>250,000</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Northallerton Magistrates' Court</p></td><td><p>450,000</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Pontypridd
Magistrates Court</p></td><td><p>350,000</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Rhyl County Court</p></td><td><p>92,150</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Richmond
Upon Thames Magistrates Court</p></td><td><p>9,850,000</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Solihull
Magistrates Court</p></td><td><p>4,300,000</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Spalding Magistrates'
Court</p></td><td><p>278,350</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Tottenham (Enfield) Magistrates
Court</p></td><td><p>4,570,000</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Waltham Forest Magistrates
Court</p></td><td><p>3,471,040</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Watford Magistrates Court</p></td><td><p>3,836,000</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Weston
Super Mare Magistrates' Court</p></td><td><p>116,078</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Woolwich
County Court</p></td><td><p>2,555,000</p></td></tr></tbody></table><p> </p><p>The
table above excludes transfers of surplus properties to other government departments
(such as Homes England) as these are not categorised as sale transactions, but as
internal transfers within government.</p><p> </p><p>Since the start of the Reform
Programme all money raised from the sale of surplus buildings has been reinvested
in the reform of HM Courts &amp; Tribunals Service.</p><p>HM Courts &amp; Tribunals
Service does not hold information on the resale value of former court and tribunal
buildings. HM Courts and Tribunals Service does however monitor resale values in instances
that could yield overage. As with any property, details of any subsequent sales can
be obtained from the Land Registry.</p>

<p>HM Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) launched new guidance to staff in November
2018 to help ensure it meets its legal duty (under the Equality Act 2010) to provide
reasonable adjustments for users with disabilities. This empowers staff to remove
barriers and support users with disabilities.</p><p> </p><p>HMCTS will also shortly
issue a new reasonable adjustment learning product for staff so that they have the
capability and confidence to support court and tribunal users with disabilities. This
learning will be mandatory for all HMCTS operational staff to complete.</p><p> </p><p>HMCTS
also has a page on <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/hm-courts-and-tribunals-service/about/equality-and-diversity"
target="_blank"><strong>GOV.UK</strong></a> setting out the support it provides, pointing
users to who they can contact to get the right support, and explaining how individual
needs will be discussed with the judge hearing a case.</p><p> </p><p>HMCTS is committed
to ensuring access to courts and tribunals is maintained for all staff and users.</p>

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate he has made of the (a) number
of court cases rescheduled due to problems with interpreting or translating services
and (b) additional cost incurred from that rescheduling in each of the last three
years.

<p>The Ministry does not hold central data for all jurisdictions and hearing types
in which interpreters are used and to manually review each case would incur disproportionate
costs. However, central information does exist on the number of trials listed in the
criminal courts which were adjourned as a result of interpreters being unavailable.
This data is published in Criminal Court Statistics.</p><p><a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/criminal-court-statistics"
target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/criminal-court-statistics</a></p><p>A
table detailing such occurrences over the last three years for which data is available
is copied below.</p><p> </p><table><tbody><tr><td><p> </p></td><td colspan="3"><p>Crown
Courts</p></td><td colspan="3"><p>Magistrates’ Courts</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Year</p></td><td><p>Number
of trials</p></td><td><p>Adjourned due to interpreter availability</p></td><td><p>%
of trials adjourned due to interpreter availability</p></td><td><p>Number of trials</p></td><td><p>Adjourned
due to interpreter availability</p></td><td><p>% of trials adjourned due to interpreter
availability</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2016</p></td><td><p><strong>37,339</strong></p></td><td><p>30</p></td><td><p>0.1%</p></td><td><p><strong>149,423</strong></p></td><td><p>495</p></td><td><p>0.3%</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2017</p></td><td><p><strong>34,579</strong></p></td><td><p>29</p></td><td><p>0.1%</p></td><td><p><strong>136,962</strong></p></td><td><p>423</p></td><td><p>0.3%</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2018</p></td><td><p><strong>29,583</strong></p></td><td><p>17</p></td><td><p>0.1%</p></td><td><p><strong>123,023</strong></p></td><td><p>495</p></td><td><p>0.4%</p></td></tr></tbody></table><p>
</p><p>As the associated costs for HMCTS of rescheduling trial cases will vary, depending
on whether other work was able to be heard in that courtroom, this information is
not held centrally.</p><p>The department continues to monitor its language service
contracts closely and work with the suppliers to drive improvements and reduce the
cost on the taxpayer. The Language Service contract has achieved a fulfilment rate
of 97% over the first quarter of 2019.</p>

<p>The table below shows the number of sitting days in courts in England that were
presided over by a recorder in each of the last 18 months to December 2018. These
figures cover sitting days by recorders in County, Family and Crown Courts.</p><table><tbody><tr><td><p>Month</p></td><td><p>Recorder
Sitting Days</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Jul-17</p></td><td><p>2,645</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Aug-17</p></td><td><p>2,886</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Sep-17</p></td><td><p>3,158</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Oct-17</p></td><td><p>2,774</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Nov-17</p></td><td><p>2,576</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Dec-17</p></td><td><p>1,901</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Jan-18</p></td><td><p>2,755</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Feb-18</p></td><td><p>2,437</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Mar-18</p></td><td><p>2,462</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Apr-18</p></td><td><p>1,763</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>May-18</p></td><td><p>1,967</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Jun-18</p></td><td><p>2,153</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Jul-18</p></td><td><p>2,138</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Aug-18</p></td><td><p>2,059</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Sep-18</p></td><td><p>1,982</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Oct-18</p></td><td><p>1,963</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Nov-18</p></td><td><p>1,727</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Dec-18</p></td><td><p>1,051</p></td></tr></tbody></table><p>
</p><p>We are only able to provide information to December 2018 as this aligns with
the latest information on court sitting days which is published on Gov.uk and is available
here. <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/civil-justice-statistics-quarterly-january-to-march-2019"
target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/civil-justice-statistics-quarterly-january-to-march-2019</a>.
It is part of the Royal Courts of Justice Annual Tables (which contain at Table 5.2
a breakdown of sitting days by type of work and level of judge)</p><p>The data source
for these figures are a number of operational systems and as such are liable to change
and may not reflect previously published statistics.</p><p>Last year Crown Court trial
waiting times were at their lowest since 2014, with this year’s allocation of sitting
days reflecting this.</p>

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is
taking to minimise the frequency of assessment for recipients of employment support
allowance and personal independence payment; and what assessment her Department has
made of the potential merits of extending the light touch benefit reviews introduced
for disabled people of pension age to (a) claimants with life-long disabilities and
(b) all claimants.

<p>Changes have been made to the benefit reassessment process for those with the most
severe and lifelong health conditions.</p><p>In Employment and Support Allowance and
Universal Credit, since September 2017 we have stopped routinely assessing those whose
level of function would always mean that they are unlikely ever to be able to move
into work. And in 2018 we introduced updated guidance for Personal Independence Payment
health professionals and case managers to ensure that people who already receive the
highest level of support and whose needs are unlikely to change or may get worse,
will receive an ongoing award with a light touch review at the ten-year point.</p><p>
</p><p> </p>

<p>There are currently no plans to introduce a Sunday rail service at these stations
as part of Northern’s franchise agreement, the specification for which was developed
in consultation with local authorities and Transport for the North. Whilst the railway
needs to balance passenger and stakeholder aspirations with the practical and economic
viability of running additional services, ideas for these can always be put forward
for consideration to Transport for the North.</p>

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the International
Civil Aviation Organisation's permitting of the use of X (unspecified) on passports,
for what reasons the Government does not issue non-gendered X passports for people
who do not identify as either male or female.

<p>United Kingdom legislation only recognises two legal sexes or genders; male and
female. There is no legal recognition of a third gender. Her Majesty’s Passport Office
can therefore only issue passports indicating ‘male’ or ‘female’.</p><p>The Government
is aware of an increasing number of people who identify as neither exclusively male
nor female. We have committed to carrying out a call for evidence on the experiences
of people who have a non-binary gender identity. The evidence gathered from this exercise
will inform the Government’s next steps in this area.</p>

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people are members of the Race
and Ethnicity Board that was established as a result of the Lammy Review; how many
hours the members of that Board have worked in the last 12 months; what the budget
is of that Board; and whether the Budget has remained the same in each year since
that Board was established.

<p>As part of the Government’s response to the Lammy Review, we have set up a Race
and Ethnicity Board to oversee progress on the recommendations, and the wider agenda
of race disparity. The Board currently has circa 22 members and is chaired by the
Ministry of Justice Director General for Policy, Communications and Analysis. Membership
of the Board includes senior level representation from departmental policy groups
(from Ministry of Justice and other government departments), operational bodies such
as HM Prison and Probation Service, HM Courts and Tribunal Service, and the Crown
Prosecution Service, and external members. It is not possible to isolate individual
time spent on race disparity work, as the board members hold these positions as part
of their wider work responsibilities. However, the board was set up in January 2018
and has since met on a quarterly basis. The board does not have a dedicated budget
as work is resourced separately by the various organisations responsible for actions
to address racial disparities.</p>

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department has taken to
implement recommendation 11 of the Lammy Review; and what information his Department
holds on (a) racial and (b) gender breakdowns of (i) plea and (ii) remand decisions
in magistrates' courts in the last 12 months.

<p>Recommendation 12 of the Lammy Review has been implemented. MoJ now publishes both
sentencing and offence tools which break data down by demographic characteristics,
whilst preserving the privacy of individuals where sample groups are small. This was
first implemented in May 2018's Criminal Justice Statistics publication and will be
updated annually. Latest versions of these data can be found at <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/criminal-justice-system-statistics-quarterly-december-2018"
target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/criminal-justice-system-statistics-quarterly-december-2018</a></p><p>
</p><p>In relation to the implementation of recommendation 11 of the Lammy Review,
research into current processes does not reveal evidence to indicate plea and remand
decision data gaps. HMCTS standard operating processes, supported by IT case management
systems applying data integrity and validation checks, satisfy the court’s duty under
Part 5 of the Criminal Procedure Rules to make records. However, it is true that plea
data is not available for a considerable volume of summary only non-imprisonable cases.
Unfortunately, this results from a defendant failing to engage with the court process
(as opposed to HMCTS failing to record the plea).</p><p> </p><p>One of the ways HMCTS
is making it easier for defendants to engage with the court process is for defendants
to respond online via the make a plea service. Furthermore, while most defendants
arrive in the magistrates’ court on bail or in custody, remand decision data is not
available for those cases arriving at court (first hearing) by way of postal requisition,
summons or single justice procedure notice because, as a matter of law, these defendants
are not on remand.</p>